The Problem With Philip J Fry
by emilycmbl
Summary: It was an undeniable fact that the turn of the millennium had affected Fry in some way. No one knew why or how, if they could help or even if he was just faking it. Most just thought that he had gone crazy and thought nothing more of it; they didn't have time to hear about some stupid, crazy, made-up stories about the distant year of 3000.
1. Insane in the Membrane

The case of Philip J. Fry had always been a hopeless one, but for some reason this time, it was different.

 _Very_ different.

Unbelievably different. So different, people had begun to suspect that maybe something had gone a bit, ahem, _wrong_ somewhere along the line (cue the whispering behind turned hands). And not just the usual "Oh, it's just Fry, of course he's like this." No. This time, everyone was actually worried for him. Pitying him. Hoping maybe, someday this whole thing will pass over without incident and he'll suddenly and unquestionably get better; straight back to normal. ("Not that I'm saying that anything's _wrong_ with him, no, no, no, of course not! I just. Well, you know..." They would always trail off somewhere around there, not daring to suggest that, God forbid, something was actually _wrong_ with Fry, but even an idiot could tell that they thought that he should be locked away in an asylum).

But by then, it had been six months. Six whole months of this. 'This' being a whole big lot of far-off make-believe stories, concerned and intruding neighbours and the occasional therapist tending to the young man. ("I realise that you don't think I need to be here, but I have been informed that Philip's behaviour for the past few months has been rather... _abnormal_." They would always seem to spit the word out, and if they didn't, they would say it as if being anything less than conventionally 'normal' was a fate worse than death.)

It was, to say the least, a bit aggravating.

So what if Phil had been telling a few stories and having a few vivid and lucid dreams? It was harmless, so why should anyone care? It's not like he'd turned to a life of drugs, crime and hookers. He wasn't going around to the children of the town and forcing them to believe his stories (the children did end up believing in them, but that's besides the point). It's not like he was criminally insane, as most people were beginning to think. In actual fact, Phil had been acting his usual self, besides the stories he came up with and the raised level of affection he had for his family.

But of course, no one else seemed to notice this. Everyone had thought that Philip J. Fry had finally gone insane in the membrane.

"It was Y2K, I tell ya!" Yancy Fry Sr. not-so-subtly said, (read: shouted) discussing his youngest son's 'condition' with his half present wife.

"Uh huh. Sure, honey," she replied absentmindedly, eyes glued to the television screen. Not even a whole second later, Mrs Fry enthusiastically jumped up in the air in triumphant celebration. "Haha!" She laughed. "Take _that_ you wankers!"

If anyone else in the room had been paying attention to the TV screen besides her, they would've known that her least favourite football team had just now suffered another crushing lost, and therefore had been officially knocked to the bottom of the table with little to no hope of climbing back up it.

She sighed with a smile and sat back down on the couch next to her husband, who was probably still ranting about automatons and cyborgs taking over the Earth.

"Sorry, what was that hon?" She asked him innocently.

"The virus!" He exclaimed as enthusiastically as his wife had while watching the game. "It's infected Phil! I don't know how they did it or why it's lasted this long but it has and they did. What else could it be? No boy of mine would be going around spouting crap about robots and aliens and mutant cyclopes without a foreign party having a hand in it!" He theorised with absolute certainty.

"You're probably right," she answered, once again not entirely listening to her husband and instead focusing most of her attention on the TV, flicking through the guide to see if any interesting sports were on.

At first glance, it would seem that one could correctly and without a doubt say that Mrs Fry loved sports more than she loved her own flesh and blood. And though, while maybe being partially right, anyone who said so couldn't be any further from the truth. While the woman did enjoy her fair share of sports (and admittedly and shamefully _may_ have been just a _teensy bit_ neglectful towards her children while watching a game or two) she loved her children more than anything in the world. They were her moon and sun, her Earth and sky, her everything, and despite sometimes driving her up the wall, she would gladly give up watching the rest of the season for her two beloved sons.

And that's why it hurt her so much to see Philip acting like this.

Frankly, it wasn't so bad; she knew it could be a lot worse. But having him insisting and not believing otherwise that these people that he'd made up were real and even _crying out for them in his sleep_ shook her to the very bone. It just wasn't like him. She'd tried to be supportive of her son nonstop, listening to the crazy stories he'd share - flying to the moon, attending school on Mars with a monkey and saving the planet from giant brains, just to name a few - and calming him down after his near constant panic attacks over his - dead? Future? Missing? (She couldn't keep track of what Phil was saying most of the time) - 'friends' that she couldn't bring herself to remember the names of.

She could put on a brave face. An aloof face. A nonchalant one. (She opted for the third.) She had too, because she had no idea what it could possibly be like for her husband and her older son if half of the family was going off the deep end.

In all fairness, it had been half a year since he'd started being like this and she could be starting to crack.

But she knew that there was nothing (too much) wrong with her son, even though the rest of the town thought so. She just hoped that, with all her heart, she wouldn't start to think like them as well.

* * *

A/N: woops i accidentally started another fic without even finishing the last chapter on my other one! (but really, sorry about that DX ill try to get back to it as soon as i can) anyway, just gonna say right now that this fic was pretty rushed, as in i just kinda wrote this first part without thinking of anything else in advance. so it would be pretty awesome of you guys if you could give me some feedback on this cause honestly im on the fence about it, but if i do continue i have a few different ideas as to where i could go with this. thanks for reading!


	2. Fixation Or Psychosis

_'This is Fry. If you're calling about the used towels for sale, they're still available for $45 each.'_

A small beep was heard the second the recorded message stopped, indicating for the caller to start speaking.

"Phil, it's your father," Yancy Sr grunted as he introduced himself. "Where are you? You're holding up New Year's brunch. Your brother can't wait any longer."

Behind Yancy Sr sat the rest of his family at the dining table: his wife eagerly watching an ever-important game of football, eyes glued to the screen (near nothing could break her concentration) and wearing her Cheesehead hat with pride, and his eldest son eyeing the sure-to-be-delicious sandwiches that his mother had made earlier that day in celebration of not just the new year, but in addition the new millennium.

"Hellooo first baloney of the new millennium," Yancy Jr said, as if he was trying to seducing his lunch.

Unfortunately for Yancy Jr, as soon as he went to take a bite out of the sandwich, he heard a bark in the distance interrupt his train of thought. After being stuck with dirty mutt for nearly the past two and a half years of his life, he could recognise that yap anywhere.

"Ah, here he comes," he announced to his father, "that's him and Seymour."

When Yancy Sr walked over and opened the door, however, what ran into the house was not in fact Philipp and his beloved dog, but instead just the lonely latter. Seymour Asses charged into the house growling and barking only to stop in the living room when he noticed no sign of his owner.

"Well, that's weird," Mrs Fry pointed out as she too noticed the lack of her youngest son. "Seymour's here but - Go! GO! Touchdown!" She shouted as the TV enticed her back into watching the game for a second but before her rejoicing could end, she finished her sentence, "- but where's Philip?"

"I'm telling ya the Y2K computers got 'im," her husband said as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "We'll face burning roads, rivers exploding, calculators transformed into Scud missiles..." He suddenly turned quite grim for a second and decided, "There's nothing we can do."

As if to lighten the mood, Seymour ran behind the TV set in order to be the centre of attention and started whining a tune that matched Katrina and the Waves' chorus of _'Walking On Sunshine'._

"What's that Seymour?" Yancy Sr entertained the dog. "You walkin' on sunshine?"

Now that he had gotten the Fry's attention, Seymour dashed to the door that separated the rest of the house from the outside world and started pawing at it.

"He's trying to tell us something!" Yancy Jr figured out. "Maybe he can lead us to Philip!"

Although the idea may have seemed out there - that if anything could lead them to wherever Philip was, it was, of all things, a dog? - it was in fact true. Seymour _could_ actually help his family find their son and brother (and technically also their father and grandfather but we don't like to talk about that) but the moment that Yancy Jr suggested to his father that they should go after the dog that they had just let loose out of the house, he shut the idea down immediately with a strong "Negatory!" and closed the door harshly behind himself.

Unfortunately for the Frys, if they _had_ gone after Phil's dog and helped track the missing boy down, they would've seen him many days earlier, and while that may not seem like a long time to wait, those lost days could've saved them from a fair bit of worrying, sleepless nights and a few breakdowns.

* * *

Eventually, Philip had indeed found himself at the Fry household once more, and life could go on as usual without the constant biting of fingernails, pulling out of hair and pacing about the house. Yes, life was back to normal, although the family that Phil found himself back in had noticed something strange about him. They could never really put their finger on it at first, but they had the ridiculous feeling that it was almost like when you get to know someone really very well that you can spend hours listing all their quirks and habits and general wonderfulness that makes them the absolutely incredible person that they are and they can do the same for you and then, just after a year or so of calling them your best friend, they leave and now you're alone and the two of you have separated. You stay in touch, of course, and decide to meet up after several years of distance, but when you talk to them again, they seem so different and alien that you feel you could never conjure up a list for all their new quirks and habits and general wonderfulness that makes them them, and wonder if that's how they feel about you now, too.

 _'Did he always look at egg sandwiches like that?'_

 _'Was he always that difficult with technology?'_

 _'Since when did he start hating bees?'_

They've always got new stories to tell, too. Stories of their adventures with their best friends who weren't you. And now imagine that person, but instead of them spending years away from you, imagine mere days. It was only days that Philip had been gone, and yet it felt to everyone like years.

The stories that Phil would tell didn't exactly help, either.

"But I was an emperor! On a planet with three suns!" Phil insisted one day a few weeks after he had reappeared, telling his older brother of one of his earliest adventures of his time in the future.

"Sure you were," Yancy had replied with a roll of his eyes. "And how exactly did _you_ become an _emperor?_ "

"By drinking the last one," Phil said, shrugging his shoulders.

Yancy exhaled and shook his head. "Of course. And how did you get there?"

He asked his brother this without knowing if it was to entertain the younger Fry or if he really wanted to know what sort of crazy thing he could manage to come up with.

"Well, we were delivering a package-"

"Not the planet, numbskull," Yancy intercepted, but as he said it he realised the context could only have meant that he was talking about the planet, and wouldn't actually mind to find out how he got there too, but he went along with his question anyway. "The future. How on earth did you manage to get to the year 3000?" He asked, exaggerating his voice to seem excited for the answer.

Phil hesitated. He opened his mouth as if to say something, as if expecting his mouth to say something for him, but no words came out. "Uh..."

Yancy scoffed.

"No, listen, you've gotta believe me! I did go to the future and I did live there! I just can't remember how I got there... or how I came back..."

Yancy sighed. "Oh, I don't have time for this," he decided and started to leave the room.

Philip sunk into himself. "People would always say that to me in the future."

Yancy threw over his shoulder: "People always say that to you now!"

Phil's brother was right. No one had time for his seemingly made up stories and no one wanted to have time for them. And however many times that his brother would tell him that, he would still go to the elder Fry every time someone else didn't listen.

Yancy did manage to put up with his ramblings for a month or so, but he had realised after a while that Phil wouldn't quit. Every day, if no one else would take the time to bear with his younger brother, he would get the short end of the stick and be forced to listen to the stories, or calm him down from a panic attack, or try and stop him from short circuiting his brain from trying to remember all the details.

At first the whole thing was silly. He could think of about one hundred and one reasons why Phil would want to be doing this and one hundred and two reasons of why it was childish. And then it was annoying. By now he could think of about one hundred and three reasons to throw his brother off of a cliff. After that it was aggravating, before he knew it was disconcerting and not before long it had become unbearable.

And that's why he had to leave.

He _had_ to. After two months, he couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't just having to deal with his brother's impending psychosis, but having to deal with being forced to see first hand on how he was turning into a psychotic. Phil was supposed to be jovial and carefree, not anxious and desperate. He had to leave, he just had to. It was just nowhere near how things were supposed to be.

* * *

a/n: what? me, updating a fic? no way! what has the world come to?! but seriously, sorry for the long wait. my school thought it would be a great idea to give my grade our half yearly exams at the same time the naplan was on, so i had the incredible pleasure of having four weeks straight of exams AND at the same time, five assignments we had to do, two of which im still working on! doesnt that sound like fun :)))) so hopefully, now that most of that nonsense is over i can atcually work on this fic instead of putting it on hiatus after one chapter. oh, and i almost completely forgot- thank you so much to you guys who reviewed, it really means a lot and helps motivate me to write more. i couldnt find time to reply to you individually for reasons stated above, but you should know that im really grateful for you taking the time to do so. thanks for reviewing and thanks for reading!


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